An ever-increasing quantity of media content is being produced that can be viewed by a content consuming user (content consumer) on a viewing device, such as a television (“TV”) or similar.
In traditional television systems, media assets (television shows, movies etc.) are aired linearly in the sense that viewers must watch the media asset at the time it is scheduled to be broadcast, and on the channel it's presented on. A content consumer has no control over what is being viewed other than change the TV channel, adjust volume and adjust display settings. All content consumers watching a linear asset will see the same thing at the same time.
Further mechanisms are now available for delivering such content in addition to traditional delivery mechanisms. These further mechanisms allow viewing of non-linear media assets.
One delivery mechanism that allows viewing of non-linear media assets is the use of a Digital Video Recorder (DVR). The main elements of a DVR are storage (e.g. a hard drive) and a tuner. A DVR allows a content consumer to select to record a media asset that is aired linearly at a scheduled time, this recorded media asset is stored in the storage such that the media asset can be viewed by the content consumer at a time of their choice.
Another delivery mechanism that allows viewing of non-linear media assets is “on-demand” delivery to user devices such as smart-TVs, set-top boxes, smartphone or tablet devices, desktop computers, laptop computers etc. whereby a content consumer can stream media content (for online consumption) or download media content (for offline consumption) from a server over a network, such as the Internet or a cable TV network, at a time of their choosing. On-demand services are typically accessed by a user using a user device on which is executed suitable media client software such as a web-browser, media streaming or download application (or “app”) e.g. provided by the broadcaster or service provider, or embedded software e.g. embedded in a set-top box provided by an operator of a cable TV network.
As used herein, a “media stream” refers to media data that is encoded and transmitted to a user device in a manner that enables the user device to begin outputting the media data to a user of the user device before the media data has been received in its entirety (that is, while the media stream is still being received at the user device). Typically, a user can begin streaming a media asset from any desired temporal point in that media asset (which may or may not be the start of that media asset) and the stream is received in real-time (that is at a data rate of at least one second of media per second of transmission time) so that later parts of the media asset are received at least as fast as earlier parts are consumed by the user.
When viewing a media asset recorded by a DVR or an on-demand media asset, unlike in traditional linear television systems the content consumer can select when to view the media asset, and may pause, rewind and fast-forward the viewing of the media asset. A certain type of on demand system called “catch-up TV” stores all aired content as on-demand assets immediately upon airing, allowing the viewer to simply watch any asset without the need to record it on their DVR. The viewer simply finds the asset, though whatever mechanism offered by the broadcaster, and watches it.
An individual piece of media content—equivalently referred to herein as a “media asset”—e.g. a video asset such as a film or episode of a television series may comprise both audio data and video data.